food related shopping in/around the twin cities

By the way, before you make your drives every other weekend, be sure to check the status of 35W if you are using that to get into Minneapolis. Reconstruction of the cross-town interchange and bridge work is causing sections of it to be closed on weekends.

What are you some kind of psychic?

I just checked. Lovetree farms is there on Saturdays only. I feel better now.

I was up at the Hmong marketplace in Saint Paul this weekend for a Chowhound gig that included a tour of the market and then lunch. Hosts/tourguides were a couple of Hmong immigrants who the organizer knew.

The place is a bit surreal. It is on the site of an old lumber yard. Gravel parking lot was packed and they had attendants helping to organize the parking. The ramshackle buildings were full of little stalls with trinkets, DVDs, electronics, herbal remedies, embroidered clothes, etc. Outside there was a farmers market with incredibly cheap produces of all kinds with a focus on "Asian produce" like Chinese broccoli, bitter melon, greens of all kinds, and peppers. Lots of haggling and none of it in English.

The food court had six or seven restaurant stalls.

I think the best thing I ate there was bitter melon greens with pork belly. I guess it is a Hmong version of greens with ham hock. Smokey, salty slices of pork belly matched perfectly with the slightly bitter greens.

The good stuff included: beautiful pork rib; smoked pork sausage; beef tendon soup; chicken meatballs; tiny, fried quail; sesame balls stuffed with yellow bean; a couple of papaya salads; bitter melon stuffed with ground chicken in broth; sticky rices; and fried bananas. There were 15 people or so and we all chipped in $5 or a little more and ate like kings.

The only thing that I didn't care for was the fried shrimp.

Afterwards we had green tea from the tea shop. (Apparently it heals all things from obesity to cancer.) The woman who runs the shop gets tea directly from a plantation in Laos. It was excellent and I bought some (the cups of tea are free, but people tip).

The place is at 217 Como Ave, between Marion and Galtier on the north side of the street.

Apparently things are mostly closed up by 6pm so best to shop/eat there at lunch.

I believe a grocery store can sell beer and wine but it has to have a separate entrance and cash registers. So, if you go to Trader Joe's you will see that they essentially have a liquor store next door. Irritating.

Sunday the only way to get alcohol is to go to a bar. Some bars that have package sales licenses can sell six packs to go. Most don't bother with the license.

I'm sure these rules makes a significant dent in incidents of alcohol abuse and drunk driving. Don't you think?

And mongo, I've heard rumor of a new-ish Indian grocer at 494 and Portland which might be more convenient for you than Patel's in NorthEast. I'll be swinging by that general vicinity sometime this week and will report back. Actually, Kabobs, the Hyderabadi place, is just across the street so maybe I'll go over there at lunch time and gets some Chicken 65.

then back down to united noodles, which was not as large as i'd expected "the largest asian grocery in the midwest" to be. it's also quite well hidden. they did have an acceptable, if not very large, fish section (i bought some head-on shrimp and some pomfret), but their meats too were more expensive than we were used to in either l.a or denver. a nice selection of east asian greens though, and i did see that they had most everything i need for my experiments with sichuan cooking--though i could not find sichuan peppercorns (can someone confirm if they or some other store in the area carries these?).

spent a little more time in united noodles today and realized that they seem to separate the staples aisles by country. they do carry sichuan peppercorns--you just have to find the right spice aisle.

bought some samosas and gulab jamuns from patel bros.. these were consumed with tea on our return home--barely acceptable (the samosas were a lot better 3 weeks ago--must have lucked into a fresher batch then).

bought some more goat from the place next to patel bros.. the proprietor informed me that since they sell goat mostly frozen they can't guarantee proper cuts through the cutting machine. since the meat itself was very good maybe i'll just ask them to make 3 horizontal cut pieces for me next time and cut it up myself at home after it thaws. on the other hand, i did establish a hyderabad connection with him at time of sale (turns out he's from there, and i lived there for 4 years), and his demeanour improved markedly, so who knows what may become possible next time.

also checked out holy land. great prices on grapeseed oil, and a large selection of olive oils. unfortunately, we were in a rush and i couldn't explore fully. they too sell goat frozen and fresh, and the price of the fresh, which i'm guessing is the one cut to order, is significantly higher than that of the frozen.

bought some more goat from the place next to patel bros.. the proprietor informed me that since they sell goat mostly frozen they can't guarantee proper cuts through the cutting machine. since the meat itself was very good maybe i'll just ask them to make 3 horizontal cut pieces for me next time and cut it up myself at home after it thaws. on the other hand, i did establish a hyderabad connection with him at time of sale (turns out he's from there, and i lived there for 4 years), and his demeanour improved markedly, so who knows what may become possible next time.

also checked out holy land. great prices on grapeseed oil, and a large selection of olive oils. unfortunately, we were in a rush and i couldn't explore fully. they too sell goat frozen and fresh, and the price of the fresh, which i'm guessing is the one cut to order, is significantly higher than that of the frozen.

we had monsoon level rain yesterday--driving into the city was hairy, and we passed lots of accidents in the city. we just took hennepin across the river to central. the bigger hassle was the closure of the 94--we had to navigate surface streets to get to united noodles. we really need to get a detailed map (we're using the rand mcnally 50 state atlas).

hasn't rained yet today, but is nice and cool. august in minnesota has so far been much nicer than advertised. how usual/unusual is this kind of rain?

oh, also stopped at surdyk's. nice store, but jesus, their wine section is difficult to navigate (perhaps i just need to get used to their display system). i was a little disappointed though that boulder has a larger wine/liquor store than the largest one in the midwest. and my confusion about variations in wine and liquor prices at different parts of the country continues. many wines and malts were more expensive in boulder than here, and vice versa. they had a decent selection of colorado small brewery beers, though nothing from avery. i ended up with a six-pack of bell's kalamazoo stout. have not yet tried it.